30
The Irish Parliament.
would be as virtuous as any on earth. It is their nature to be so. They are not born an avaricious, griping, plundering gentry; but the very reverse—noble, generous, and independent. It is only the most vile Government that makes any of them otherwise. It is the despicable panders of an external administration; who come over here and blow upon their characters, and tamper with them and taint them; and then, when they go back to England, stigmatise them for the very taint which they themselves had given, until they have made the name of the Irish Parliament almost a synonym for corruption."[1]
- ↑ "Irish Debates," vol. xiv. pp. 101, 102. For some account of Parliamentary corruption in England, see May's "Constitutional History," vol. i. pp. 361—387; Hallam's "Constitutional History," vol. iii. pp. 263—267.
